Mechanical Royalties

Today's post is by FMC intern Peter Haugen, who has a penetrating mind for all manner of speculative musical phenomenon!

It's Friday! Can't think of a better time to speculate on the future of. . . you guessed it.

While flying cars and jetpacks have yet to become a practical reality (but let's not give up hope!), a recent YouTube video serves as a reminder that, musically speaking, the future is closer than we think. If you haven't seen this video yet, try listening to the first two minutes with your eyes closed. read more

If you've been paying any attention to music biz news this week, you've no doubt stumbled across an item (or ten) about Google OneBox -- the web search company's bold foray into the world of on-demand music. While many of the reports focus on what this new service means for fans hungry to hear tunes with one-click, they don't often drill down into what this might mean for artists and songwriters.

OneBox has already launched, so you could just go try it out right now. Or, you could read what our vigorous research revealed about the new venture. OK, it wasn't really that vigorous -- we simply entered a band into the Google search bar to see what happened next. read more

On September 23, songwriters, publishers, record labels and digital music services announced they had reached an agreement on mechanical royalties for songs played on online music services.

Called a “breakthrough that will facilitate new ways to offer music to consumers online,” the voluntary agreement crafted by the Digital Media Association (DiMA), the National Music Publishers— Association (NMPA), the RIAA, the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) ended a longstanding dispute about mechanical royalties for interactive streaming and limited downloads. read more

Yahoo! to stop supporting Yahoo! Music after September 30
Starting Oct. 1, customers won’t be able to revive frozen tracks or move working ones onto new hard drives or computers, because Yahoo! won’t be providing any more keys to the songs’ DRM wrappers. Without the keys, the music is stuck. If a user’s computer goes on the fritz, say good-bye to Yahoo’s music. This situation epitomizes the problem we laid out in our last post about the Library of Congress.Chris Gaither, LA Timesread more

FCC Chairman plans to recommend censure against Comcast
Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin plans to recommend that the FCC issue a warning against the ISP for imposing "arbitrarily limits" on its subscribers. The recommendation, now circulating internally, would require various disclosure and procedural shifts without applying penalties.Margaret Kane, News.comread more

Coldplay Smashes Records on iTunes, In More Ways Than One…
Apple declined to offer hard figures, though digital album totals of Viva La Vida across various retailers topped 288,000, according to figures supplied by major label executives. Of that, iTunes carries a commanding percentage, one that may have pushed past 275,000, according to a separate estimate.Paul Resnikoff, Digital Music Newsread more

In August, FMC’s Kristin Thomson had a chat with Neeta Ragoowansi,
membership director for SoundExchange, the agency that collects and
distributes the digital public performance royalty. We talked about
the basics of how SoundExchange works and its growth over the past
four years, and why it’s important for bands, labels and performers
to become members of SoundExchange. Don’t know much about
SoundExchange? Read on to see how it could apply to you.read more